I rage
I rage against so much that I cannot handle all this pain in my body
I refuse to submit to the numbness of apathy
Of the sugar coated nihilism of easy escape plans
Halfhearted shrugs
This is the way it’s always been
And they move clockwise, another cog in this blood soaked, dying machine
I rage against it all
Scream to jumpstart the momentum
Force myself to stay standing
Move against those shoving me back
I exhale and run due north
Where change lies and a better future waits for us
– Amanda Leon
Author’s Note: I wrote this poem after a school shooting occurred in the news, and witnessed a congressman’s response to the question if there was anything lawmakers could do to pass gun control or any measures to keep children safe.…
...continue reading
Instead of being, so beautiful
You could photograph
The yearly
Flight-of-the-soot-faced-children
Pinocchio-esque from the mines
So eat your damn vegetables
Or maybe flip a coin
After all
A coin flipped
On the surface of the moon?
You could make a lot of wishes while its turning
– Izzy Maxson
Author’s Note: “Guilt trip” is kind of a surreal little monolog of a poem, and the title is to some extent my having fun with the idea of a poem hectoring of badgering or moralizing to the reader.…
...continue reading
This time instead of flowers lots of poison flowers
Have I spread on your pulpit in worship elements
You take those and look at me blinkingly
This time instead of an idol I have made a bumpkin
In the temple is playing on diabolic song
You stare at me while sitting
Engaged in thinking if there was any wrong
And I pinching on friends’ buttocks speak out hurrah.
– Mozid Mahmud…
...continue reading
1. Acquire a flower – most preferably one with sentimental value, otherwise why are you even bothering. You need emotion to motivate writing.
2. Spread out each petal so that it lays flat on the tissue paper. Make sure the stem is gone because why on earth would you press a stem. Unless you are composing an Ode to Thorns, paired with the poetic balance of beauty and pain. Be still my heart.
3. Cover both sides of the flower with the tissue paper in order to soak up the fluid. Whilst doing so, formulate a simile about the tissue soaking up the lifeblood of the flower like the pillow soaks up your tears every night. Find other love-sick examples on the world-wide-web.
4. Place the flower in a tight vice, or for regular people, under a stack of heavy books.…
...continue reading
– after Rita Dove
Morning. I look at my fuzzy chest
in the bathroom mirror. What are these
hard disks, like quarters, under my nipples?
I’m a boy; am I growing breasts?
I can hear the girls in my class giggling.
Last evening during homework,
my father called me to the living room,
and back at my desk, I couldn’t remember
what he’d said, but I realized
he had not yelled at me like the day before
and the day before that and . . . The letters
in the book swam like fish avoiding
a bigger fish until the current
in my eyes calmed.…
...continue reading
Sweetness begins like the drizzling of a raincloud
Sporadically spitting in tasteful bursts
Like ink blotches on wet parchment,
Sugar waltzes with taste buds and
Bides its time before bursting the dam
And flooding the mouth with ambrosia
Pray the bees do not mind.
– Sarah Al-Hajj
Note: This piece was previously published in Sarah Al-Hajj’s poetry pamphlet, Wonky Fingers, in February of 2024.…
...continue reading
for Ava
Today my daughter—
now twelve and already looking like a young woman—
stands with me at the edge of a field.
I tell her California’s mustard flowers
are an invasive species first planted
by Spanish colonizers
so they wouldn’t lose their way.
She tells me about the blue bowl
she made in pottery class,
that comet pieces and moons make up Saturn’s rings.
I point to the park on the other side of the road,
where small children climb monkey bars,
where we used to play every Saturday
and wait for the first evening stars to let us know
it was time to go home.
She says she is too old for places like this now.
All around us are blazing pink daffodils
and brilliant lilies of the valley.…
...continue reading